BBC Breakfast, Lunch And Dinner 3 of 3 Dinner 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/bo1nz987

Clarissa Dickson Wright's latest culinary adventure reveals the origins and
development of our three daily meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner. As a
nation, we take them for granted, assuming that they have always existed as
they are now. But unpick each of these eating rituals, trace their lineage back
through a thousand years of British history and you find fascinating and
surprising stories of social upheaval and shifting class structures, of
technological developments and gastronomic revolutions.

Clarissa Dickson Wright completes her journey through the history of our
mealtimes with dinner - our main meal of the day and also our showiest. Dinner
is when we like to enjoy the finest dishes and exhibit our good taste even if,
as Fanny Cradock understood, that involves a touch of snobbery. And, as
Clarissa discovers, some people nowadays resort to serving ready meals as if
they were their own culinary creations!

But although dinner is our most ritualistic meal, don't imagine that its
traditions are timeless and unchanged. In fact, it's a microcosm of 1,000 years
of evolving customs. As she journeys back into history, Clarissa reveals that
in the Middle Ages, even the most refined diners ate with their hands - we have
the Italians to thank for introducing us to the fork. Similarly, we have the
humble turnip to thank for making roast beef our historic national dish, and
the custom of eating dinner in series of separate courses only came to us via
the Russian ambassador to Paris in the nineteenth century. But most surprising,
perhaps, is the fact that for centuries dinner was always served in daylight
hours. The custom of eating it in the evening only came about because of the
increased availability of candles in Georgian times.

Sadly, we have the Victorians to blame for the poor reputation of British
dinnertime cuisine, something that even pioneer TV cook Fanny Cradock could do
nothing to dispel; and the rise in popularity of ready meals in our own time is
not likely to revive it. As she reaches the end of her journey, Clarissa
arrives at a typically outspoken conclusion about the current state of our
mealtime traditions and what we need to learn from the customs of the past.